Animating Gears & Gradient Fill

I was making some Gears that I wanted to animate (easy huh) and had some questions... when I got to animate, should I make the frames myself or does Xara do well with using key frames (what would I need? Start, Finish, middle?)

I have the gears on different Layers, should I just leave that way, Rotating myself and making a different frame of the animation with each adjustment.

The 'teeth' on the gears indvidually placed squares/rectangles... I was thinking of doing a gradient fill for the Gears, do I have to combine the pieces to do that or will making a Editable shape do that for me?)

Plus, I noted when I was experimenting with placement of the Teeth of the Gears, when I tried to Manually Rotate around the Common Center, that some of the Teeth would 'NOT' rotate but distort :eek: along a horizontal line... becoming like a parallelagram... not what I expected trying to use manual rotating. I did, of course, get the teeth placed by designating the degrees and letting the program rotate (but, even then, some distortion would have with the 'tooth' being too high off the gear... requiring manual adjustment with the arrow keys so as not to risk the distortion using the mouse.

To all you guys with questions, a bit of well meant advice always try the search option before posting a query.

Tom try this http://talkgraphics.com/showthread.p...ighlight=gears

If this doesn't help try typing "spinning gears or cogs" in the search facility there's quite a lot there.
........Norman

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Originally Posted by parahandy

To all you guys with questions, a bit of well meant advice always try the search option before posting a query.

Tom try this http://talkgraphics.com/showthread.p...ighlight=gears

If this doesn't help try typing "spinning gears or cogs" in the search facility there's quite a lot there.
........Norman

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WoW! 4 spinning Gears making a cube - Way more Complex, losing me, than I need - I will try the other two searches...

=== also part of post about Gears & a Problem I had =====
Plus, I noted when I was experimenting with placement of the Teeth of the Gears, when I tried to Manually Rotate around the Common Center, that some of the Teeth would 'NOT' rotate but distort :eek: along a horizontal line... becoming like a parallelagram... not what I expected trying to use manual rotating. I did, of course, get the teeth placed by designating the degrees and letting the program rotate (but, even then, some distortion would have with the 'tooth' being too high off the gear... requiring manual adjustment with the arrow keys so as not to risk the distortion using the mouse.
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(while many of the posts, 'How-To' - I don't see where the post answer 'Why' the Retangles/Squares 'Squash' and move along a Horizontal line Instead of Rotating Manually -or, did that get over-looked?) :o Tom

Not sure what you had in mind with the gears. Here's a method for making a gear, not animating. Uses a boolean factor.

Perhaps someone could explain to me a couple of things.

The GIF animation below is from the gear I made in the previous post.

I noticed it was wobbling, so I put a rectangle in the first frame to see how much it was wobbling.

What occurred next surprised me. There was not only noticeable wobble, but the gear appears to dig out a portion of the rectangle.

Just exactly what is happening here?

Animation was made in Xara3D.

Here is the geardig X3D file.

I resized the export so the GIF animation would be smaller; this is the full size file in Xara 3D.

James, pulling the x3d file into pro after straightening the angles out by hand as good as my eyes can I see that the center circle is not dead center.
As far as the rectangle being chewed away - now that is really strange! :eek:

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Originally Posted by jamesmc

Perhaps someone could explain to me a couple of things.

The GIF animation below is from the gear I made in the previous post.

I noticed it was wobbling, so I put a rectangle in the first frame to see how much it was wobbling.

What occurred next surprised me. There was not only noticeable wobble, but the gear appears to dig out a portion of the rectangle.

Just exactly what is happening here?

Animation was made in Xara3D.

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James, Running your attached file in my 3d6 had the same problem as you indicated. But running the attached image I did before was normal without wobbling. I had tried different angles and got the same results . I can not explain and wait for some experts like Bill, Egg and Gary to answer it.

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Originally Posted by -=Drifter=-

James, pulling the x3d file into pro after straightening the angles out by hand as good as my eyes can I see that the center circle is not dead center.
As far as the rectangle being chewed away - now that is really strange! :eek:

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Hmmm,

Drifter should the center match the handles on the sides? Take a look at this kloned ellispe and where the horizontal line points compared to yours.

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Originally Posted by jamesmc

Hmmm,

Drifter should the center match the handles on the sides? Take a look at this kloned ellispe and where the horizontal line points compared to yours.

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Thank You Jamesmc, Ren, Drifter! You guys at Killer! ... I will try to get the squished squares...

My guidelines show the center of the outer gear shape and that the center circle's center is in a different spot.

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Originally Posted by -=Drifter=-

My guidelines show the center of the outer gear shape and that the center circle's center is in a different spot.

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I have trouble with getting stuff to line-up on common center sometimes... or to have a common center (I am trying to keep track of this -see if me or the program) :o

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Originally Posted by Hwy101

I have trouble with getting stuff to line-up on common center sometimes... or to have a common center (I am trying to keep track of this -see if me or the program) :o

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Me too.

I went back and rechecked each stage and no matter what stage I check, I get the wobble, including the ellipse by itself.

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Originally Posted by jamesmc

Me too.

I went back and rechecked each stage and no matter what stage I check, I get the wobble, including the ellipse by itself.

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Thanks for Posting Your Experience too Jamsemc -I'll relax a bit knowing that.

(I'd hate to have to 'trace' this to see what happening... I, once, had enough 'fun' tracking a non-print in basic programing class - Printed fine on the Printer; but, not on/to Screen... (and not to leave any one hang: t'was printing ON Screen; but I had, in error, left the screen color & the character color the same -Bad Tom) - Just took Challenged Tom FOREVER to Find!)

Heresy follows :eek: :
Sometimes, when I need 'Accuracy' I end up in another Program... <sigh>
(trying not to think of the Gear Teeth that deformed and would not manually rotate Nicely)
End Heresy!

The conclusion I have come up with is that Blends are bugged and cannot be used in rotating animations.

I've tried several versions of the gear like object without blends and boolean on the inner ellipse and I get no wobble.

It is only with blends that I get the wobble.

I found specifically that when any shape is blended, then boolean subtracted, the shape will wobble.
Also, even if it isn't booleaned the shape will wobble.

Okay, I think I've figured this out and that blend and boolean works for rotating gears. (watch it not work when displayed here :D)

Anyway, what I did is turned rulers on and when I clicked on the gear to get rotation handles and the center location, I used the intersection of the top and side ruler to line up the center pivot. This seems to solve the wobbling gear using the method I displayed. I have no idea why other than when not using the built in guides and rulers of Xara, the pivot center of the manufactured gear is not actually centered and defaults to center of the original object which is not really there. Does that make sense? Me neither. :D

Anyway it appears to work, why I don't know. My apologies to Charles and Company, there appears to be no bug in blends or boolean, just another user error.:o

Control L to show Rulers btw.

That's another reason to embed origin points as an attribute for each shape.
Move the shape, stretch the shape, Add/Intersect the shape with another one, Redraw parts of the shape - and never loose the origin point. It's useful for so many things.

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Originally Posted by Nostaw

That's another reason to embed origin points as an attribute for each shape.
Move the shape, stretch the shape, Add/Intersect the shape with another one, Redraw parts of the shape - and never loose the origin point. It's useful for so many things.

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Embed origin points? How do I do that?

Here's another gear mechanism using the blended/boolean method.

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Originally Posted by jamesmc

Embed origin points? How do I do that?

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Sorry to be cryptic and not much of help. Origin points (sometimes called Center) do not exist as an attribute for shapes in Xara. This was merely a suggestion for future versions.

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Originally Posted by Nostaw

Sorry to be cryptic and not much of help. Origin points (sometimes called Center) do not exist as an attribute for shapes in Xara. This was merely a suggestion for future versions.

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I'll endorse that - would be very useful

Not certain if this is of any help.

Its made with two 26 point beveled QuickShape "stars" and 6 frames in Xara Xtreme

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Originally Posted by jamesmc

Okay, I think I've figured this out and that blend and boolean works for rotating gears. (watch it not work when displayed here :D)

Anyway, what I did is turned rulers on and when I clicked on the gear to get rotation handles and the center location, I used the intersection of the top and side ruler to line up the center pivot. This seems to solve the wobbling gear using the method I displayed. I have no idea why other than when not using the built in guides and rulers of Xara, the pivot center of the manufactured gear is not actually centered and defaults to center of the original object which is not really there. Does that make sense? Me neither. :D

Anyway it appears to work, why I don't know. My apologies to Charles and Company, there appears to be no bug in blends or boolean, just another user error.:o

Control L to show Rulers btw.

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Thanks for Posting Your Findings... When you put the Rulers 'dead on' you me the 0,0 point at the Center of the Gear? :confused:

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Originally Posted by Bob C.

Not certain if this is of any help.

Its made with two 26 point beveled QuickShape "stars" and 6 frames in Xara Xtreme

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Thanks Bob C - I Love Your Star-Gears! They are Great! Tom :)

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Originally Posted by Hwy101

Thanks for Posting Your Findings... When you put the Rulers 'dead on' you me the 0,0 point at the Center of the Gear? :confused:

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Yeah.

If you look at the handles (actually the skew handles) on the top and the bottom, the center of those is center on top and sides. You then drag the ruler guides where they are exactly dead center of those handles and you should get the center of the object where the ruler guides intersect.

You can the drag the object origin point where the ruler guides intersect.

That would be the centered location for the object.